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Translator of Demian by Hermann Hesse into English - an interlinear translation for German students and those who want to see the original text.
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Tuesday, February 09, 2010

The Senate campaign for Rand Paul (the son of Ron Paul) is becoming more and more interesting, as Rand Paul over the past few months has pulled into the lead in the Republican primary and also polls well in a general election matchup along with a very high favourability rating. The most interesting part of the campaign is probably watching the reaction from all sides as they begin to think about the possibility of seeing him win the primary and then a seat in the Senate.

Some of the negative reactions: this diary entry on Daily Kos is a typical example of those that view him negatively from the Democratic side, and this blog entry from RedState shows a typical negative post from the Republican side, those that see him as an isolationist, a naive blame-America-first on foreign policy candidate, and just about everything else we saw directed at Ron Paul during the Republican primaries in 2007 to early 2008.

Okay then, how about Rand Paul himself? He recently appeared on both CNN and Fox News, and the CNN interview is the more interesting one as it shows how he deals with controversy. The Tea Party movement, begun in 2007, has been hijacked to a certain extent by a large group of people that piled on after Obama won the presidency and these big-government and pro-foreign-adventure Republicans suddenly remembered that deficits are a bad thing. And along with that came the Obama is Hitler (and somehow Marx at the same time!) posters and other silly comparisons. Paul resembles his father though in being pretty deft at simply steering the topic back to finances, his favourite issue.

I'm generally supportive of just about any politician who sticks to issues, avoids demagoguery and is capable of independent thought, traits that are unfortunately very difficult to find. Rand Paul seems to fit this. 2010 is also pretty much perfect as far as timing is concerned, as I am hoping for another Republican defeat in 2010 and 2012 but along with a few key victories among candidates like Paul, in order to create a more issue-oriented atmosphere by the 2016 presidential election. By that time Paul will have served a full 6-year term in the Senate and may decide to run then.